As we have followed Apple announced iOS 8 at the keynote event of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, revealing many new features and a number of significant changes to the platform, like the iOS integrates with OS X, and the support for third-party keyboards.
Notification Center
Now you can interact with any notification without leaving the current open app like to respond to a text messages or comment on a Facebook publication, that through pull down notifications, or complete actions from notifications shown on the lock screen. Apple is also going to allow you to place widgets inside the Notification Center.
Keyboard Enhancements
iOS 8 will bring a new feature to the iOS keyboard called QuickType, shows word suggestions as you type, based on your past conversations and writing style, aswell on the person you’re communicating with. Predictive text is available in 14 countries. 'Which means as you type, you’ll see suggested words and phrases that are commonly used in your region.'
For the first time ever, Apple with iOS 8 opens up the keyboard to developers, which means keyboards like Swype can be used natively on the operating system. instead of the original.
For the first time ever, Apple with iOS 8 opens up the keyboard to developers, which means keyboards like Swype can be used natively on the operating system. instead of the original.
Messages Improvements
Messages comes with several improvements that should make the most frequently used app in iOS all the more useful. The most feature that can grabbing your attention is “tap-to-talk” feature, which will let you 'to capture any sound — your voice, a song, or a big laugh — and make it part of the conversation. Simply touch and hold the new microphone button to record your message. Then swipe to send it', as you can see above. Do your part if you want to hear a message, simply by raising the iPhone to your ear or just tap the Play button. You can also send quickly short video messages.
The other welcome addition to Messages in iOS 8 is that gives users more control on the group text conversations, so you can name the thread, easily add and remove people, and leave the conversation whenever you want. Or turn on Do Not Disturb and then read through the messages when you have time.
The up coming Messages gives you the ability to quickly share your location with friends, also the ability to see all the photos and videos within a thread, 'without having to scroll through earlier messages.' As well the ability to send multiple photos and videos concurrently.
Health
Health app is a centralized place where many health and fitness apps can send your health information, so you can monitor all of your health metrics from your weight to blood pressure to calories burned, from a single hub, instead to access each app separately, such as those from Nike and Fitbit. For this process Apple created a new tool for developer called HealthKit, which 'allows all the incredible health and fitness apps to work together.'
Apple is also working with the Mayo Clinic, letting patients and doctors work together using HealthKit to get personalized thresholds for readings, notifying doctors automatically when something is wrong. The Mayo Clinic's CEO Dr. John H. Noseworthy commented to that "We believe Apple's HealthKit will revolutionize how the health industry interacts with people." In addition to Mayo Clinic Apple working with leaders in health care apps like Epic Systems to allow similar integration with major hospitals. This will help doctors to access the required information of their visitors seamlessly.
Siri
Siri in iOS 8 gets several updates. You can now activate Siri without touching you iPhone, by simply saying “Hey Siri.” Siri now has the ability to identify songs via Shazam functionality, purchase content from iTunes via voice commands, streaming voice recognition to show users search results as they speak, and can now dictate in 22 new languages.
Family Sharing
Family Sharing might considered a great feature on the upcoming iOS 8, despite its simplicity but might provide many nice things and makes family more cohesion. The Family Sharing feature will let families (up to six family members) share purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store without sharing accounts, using the same credit card. When a child attempts to purchase an app, a parent’s device will get a popup right now asking him to approve or decline the purchase.
When you set up your Family Sharing all family members can immediate access to each other’s music, movies, TV shows, books, and apps. The feature is also allowed easily to share photos, a family calendar, and reminders.
One shared family calendar equals one happy, organized family. Now everybody in the family can add events to one calendar. You can even set up family reminders that will appear on everyone’s devices at the exact time or place you choose. So when it’s school picture day, pizza night, or just a trip to the beach, everyone’s in the know.Family Sharing can automatically share your location with others family members. And with Find My iPhone app, family members can use their devices to locate that's lost.
Photos
The Photos app also has known some updates, so far Apple’s Photo Stream has only allowed for 1,000 photos, but with new iCloud Photo Library all your photos and videos will be storage automatically in your iCloud account, once you’ve enabled the setting. You get 5GB of iCloud storage free, you can upgrade to 20GB for 0.99 cents per month or other high-premium. With this way you can access and edit your photos from any device, notably with the presence of new Smart Editing features, photos filters, and composition tools, as well the option to revert back to the original photo's elements.
Crop, straighten, enhance, or add filters to your pictures using Photos in iOS 8. Your changes are immediately uploaded to iCloud and visible on your other devices. And the edits are nondestructive, so you can always revert back to your original if you change your mind.
In addition to these improvements, to find your photos became more simplified, now you can select the search by the date, time, location, or album name. Apple enhanced the photos search with smart suggestion, so you will get choices based on what's important to you.
The Camera has also got a new mode called "Time-lapse" videos.
Capture the experience of the sun setting, a city street bustling, or a flower blooming with the new Time-lapse mode in Camera. iOS 8 does all the work, snapping photos at dynamically selected intervals. The result is a video showing an accelerated sequence of the photos over time. Just set up your device to shoot what you want. Swipe to select Time-lapse mode, tap the Record button, and let Camera record as long as you choose.
Handoff
Expansion of the AirDrop feature that can through it the Apple's devices communicate with each other. Apple announced a new feature more streamlined and efficient, so is stretched to include even the conversations. The Handoff feature allowing you to continue or finish your work that you have begun in the first device like your iPad into the other like your Mac, iPhone, or vice versa. These works or activities could include web browsing, Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, and Contacts. The matter has also opened to developers to add Handoff into their apps. the communication process happens automatic when your devices are signed in to the same iCloud account.
As has been pointed the feature also support the possibility to transfer calls between your Apple's devices, allowing you to make and receive phone calls from your Mac, or iPad. That means with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite you can now answer the iPhone calls smoothly from your Mac or iPad, this done on the same Wi-Fi network. That may also happened when your iPad or Mac are connected in the same hotspot with your iPhone, that across a new feature called Instant Hotspot, so you’ll see the name of your iPhone in the list of Wi-Fi networks. In addition to that you can also send and receive SMS and MMS text messages right from your iPad or Mac, from any kind of phone.
HomeKit
On the same approach that we have seen in the HealthKit, Apple has taken the initiative again to organize what are existing, more to could be considered as a new innovation. HomeKit is a center where you can control by your iPhone all smart or supported devices in your home.
As is well known there are many devices you can control them through the iOS devices like a smart lock from August company, the Hue connected light bulb from Philips, Skybell, and others. Currently each of these services are used its networking security manner and controlled by their own apps. Apple with HomeKit will make the connection with these devices more secure and centralised, by introducing a common network protocol, and Apple will also run a certification program to go along with HomeKit.
With HomeKit iPhone or iPad users will be able to control their smart devices such as locks, doors, lights, thermostats, cameras, doors, plugs.... The services can be controlled individually or grouped together as "scenes." They'll all be controllable through Siri too, users will be able to speak a command like "get ready for bed", and a smart home could automatically dim its lights, lock its doors, and the thermostat lowered to a nice cool sleeping temperature.
Developers
iOS 8 opens many prospects for developers to provide you the best products, it gives developers over 4000 new APIs and services that can enable new categories of apps and features. One of these is the Extensibility that allows apps within iOS 8 to share information with each other and with the Notification Center.
Many capabilities have been opened to developers, like Sharing Options, 'which means you’ll have more places to share what matters to you'. This also applies to Photo Editing, Custom Actions, Notification Center, Keyboard, and Documents.
We’re expanding how iOS handles documents to enable you to open and edit documents using more apps, and to share documents between apps without creating unnecessary copies.In addition to what we have mentioned, Apple has also unlocked several new capabilities, such as the Touch ID, so you can using it to sign in to third-party apps without need to enter a password, in the same time these apps cannot access to your fingerprint data, Apple has also provided APIs for Cameras which gives more manual controls to third-party apps, besides PhotoKit, which gives developers the possibilities for their apps to edit photos directly in the Camera Roll without having to import them first. Apple has been published some of these unlocking capabilities and new advanced tools for game developers on its website, you can view them.
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In addition to what has been mentioned on iOS 8 features, there are several features and tidbits we'll talk about them in the feature. iOS 8 is available to developers as a beta and it will be released to the public in the fall, you can also get it but is not recommended.
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